Same. I've been doing this voluntarily since March. Does this suck? Yes. Is it better than dying or killing somebody? Fuck yes. I don't understand how it's even a question.
I find the self certainty in the phrasing there so shocking. Why can't you do this consistently with all communicable viruses that call? How do you know you're not being completely arbitrary deciding "just this one"
Basically, I would never make such absolute statements because saving lives is always an opportunity cost. Human life is only so long, if I stay in lockdown a year to save a stranger, I might miss the last Thanksgiving with a parent or grandparent in their last year on the planet and never know until it is too late. That's not a trivial cost when you lock down a million to save one, while all one million lose a piece of their finite lives forever.
One example analogy would be increased airline safety regulation. More regulation increases ticket prices. Supply and demand means a high price will ultimately cause a family to decide to make a road trip over flying for economic reasons. The chance of dying in a multi hour car drive is far higher than in one hour on a commercial aircraft. You can at least use numbers in this case to say if new regulation is justified based on the expected lives saved.
And my moral condemnation for people is absolutely not cavalier. I actively and vigorously condemn the legion of assholes who think mild personal inconvenience is worse than mass death plus a much greater swathe of serious illness. I also condemn the societal moral failures that have impeded a sensible coordinated response, especially the politicians who, having created and sustained an underclass, now insist for ideological reasons that their suffering should be deepened while at the same time making the pandemic worse for everyone. It's both moral idiocy and moral obscenity. At best, it's obliviousness or IGMFU. But more often, as Serwer wrote, "The cruelty is the point."
The fact that we started doing this in 2020 is the problem, we should have done this every flu season.
It works, it reduces transmission. Asian countries have been doing this for years, it’s an expected norm.
The rest of the measures are debatable, but wearing a mask when you’re sick should not be.
I am biased though. I've always had a huge admiration of Japan and resentment that I couldn't wear a mask when sick, because it is illegal in many jurisdictions in the US for anyone over 18 to wear a mask as well as those under when it's not halloween.
I highly doubt after the pandemic masks are going to suddenly be legalized. Cops appear to just be ignoring the law right now, which is absurd.
And as best I know, I do "do this" with all potentially fatal communicable diseases. I get the flu shot every year. I even do it with non-fatal diseases as best I can. When I'm sick, I stay the hell home. I exercise good hygiene and good food safety.
And I have no idea why people don't do otherwise. All it takes is valuing others' health and survival.
Why are you so certain of your viewpoint? Other people can't have different opinions to you?
because the lockdown in Victoria worked.
> Other people can't have different opinions to you?
Are those opinions shared by the scientific community?
Co-authored by Donald Henderson who was credited with ridding the world of smallpox talking about the effectiveness of lock downs -> http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552...
It is immaterial that D. A. co-authored that back in 2006. It was a different time, and the measures that he is professing against have _demonstrably_ proven to be effective.
The paper gives suggestions based on many assumptions that don't hold considering the implemented rules. But they're just suggestions. Offering this paper in the face of demonstrable evidence that these measures do in fact work seems a little irrational in my perspective.
So his solution is to not screen people and let everyone in?
> Quarantine. As experience shows, there is no basis for recommending quarantine either of groups or individuals
So his recommendation is to let people with virus loose in the community. You really believe that?
Maybe you need to listen to people who have experience with the flu and other corona viruses instead someone with small pox experience.
Two days later, the city shut down most public gatherings and quarantined victims in their homes. The cases slowed.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-citie...
Look at NSW for how its done. Reasonable sensible decisions taken over months with contact tracing that actually works.
yes and Victoria's contract tracing was not good at that time and the virus was spreading in the community so the right solution after that was to have a lockdown.
Could this be addressed? Sure. Should it in future? Probably. But we don't get a whole lot of tries when there's a pandemic going around. It didn't work at first, how many attempts do you have to give it before you say "we need to solve that next time, right now we need a different solution"?
And I'm not concerned with other people's opinions. I'm concerned with their actions. If somebody follows public health guidelines, they can have whatever opinion they want. If they're out helping transmit a disease killing millions and wrecking the economy, I still don't care what their opinions are.
But once the human tragedy became apparent, once the people in charge visited one or two hospitals, once it became clear that many people, while surviving, are left disabled - well - opinions changed.
You are free to have your opinion, of course.
Given that this is a highly infectious virus, a reasonable person will understand that aside from those in this at risk group, every external point of contact is an additional risk. Should they also do the same?
The point I try to make is that with how connected our societies are, the interconnected nature enables the spread to the point where a single group quarantining is ineffective.
Think of it in terms of a spreading fire. The more a fire burns nearby, the higher the chances it will spread even to an isolated area or overcome fire resistance measures.